We'll always have Parris

In the Observer, Geordie Grieg was very cross indeed, and one can only hope that the object of his wrath, Edwina Currie, was in ebullient mood when she read his review of her diaries. "More peep show than Pepys," seethed Grieg, before pronouncing that "pounds of flesh and pounds sterling are her currency...in the end more than anyone else she has screwed herself". A far kinder reception awaited another former Conservative MP, Matthew Parris. In the Sunday Times, Christopher Silvester hailed Chance Witness as "a five-star autobiography, destined to become a minor classic"; meanwhile, the Sunday Telegraph's Boris Johnson, calling Parris "the Tiger Woods of hackery", hoped "that this is really a manifesto, and someone sensible finds him a seat at once".

If he was still smarting at the contentiously savage review Natasha's Dance received in the Times Literary Supplement, Orlando Figes might have been cheered by opening the Independent on Sunday, in which Robin Buss found much to admire in "one of those books that, at times, makes you wonder how you have so far managed to do without it". There was no such comfort for Anthony Julius; although the Observer's Philip Hensher conceded that Transgressions was "quite a clever book", his main beef was that "there is nothing much to say about the subject he long ago chose".

It's not uncommon to find reviewers with wildly diverging opinions; it's less common to find both praise and damnation in the same piece. Matt Thorne's Independent on Sunday review of Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, written as a dialogue, bounced from Thorne-as-delighted-reader ("it offered me a whole week of sustained pleasure") and Thorne-as-stern-critic ("there is no reason for this book to exist"). Far less exhausting was Ruth Rendell's comment, in the Sunday Times, that the novel was "irresistibly readable, cool and rather wonderful".

Opposing views also greeted Jeffrey Eugenides's novel, Middlesex. The Spectator's Sebastian Smee lamented "a charming, witty, but ultimately disappointing example of the dangers of putting it all in", while the Sunday Times's Stephen Amidon was struck by "a warm and beautifully written novel that illuminates the part of the human soul that even biology cannot reach".